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WHEATLEY, VERA [MARY MAUD] (30 Nov 1890 – 4 Mar 1975)
(née Semple)
1920s – 1960s
Author of nearly 20 works of fiction for adults and children. These include
two related titles, Lilias Next-Door
(1924) and Lilias Goes to School
(1928), the latter a school story. Other children's titles are Into the Picture Screen, or, The Time of
Enchantment (1931), Summer with the
Morrisons (1954), and Always the
Wetherby Girls (1966). Her novels for adults appear to have romantic
themes, and include Devices and Desires
(1926), Single-Handed (1931), A Candle of Understanding (1947), and Love Has Many Tongues (1964). Wheatley
also published a biography, The Life
and Work of Harriet Martineau (1957).
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WHEELER, MARGARET (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of one novel, The
Amazing Padre (1924), which sounds like a rather feisty adventure/romance,
and one girls' school story One Term at
School (1925).
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WHETTER, LAURA (21 Aug 1903 - 1960)
(married name Mannock)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than two dozen romantic novels, including Empty of Heart (1934), Stolen
Thunder (1936), A Star Danced
(1940), Sunlight Sonata (1942), Dust for Dreams (1946), Whither Thou Goest (1952), Eve Without Her Eden (1953), and Bachelor Gay (1959).
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Whibley, Polly
see JAMES, PAULINE M.
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WHIPPLE, AMY (26 Mar 1854 – 18 Apr 1940)
1900s – 1930s
Author of more than 20 children's books, many with religious themes. Titles
include The Children of the Crag
(1913), Winning the Prize (1917), Two Pairs and an Old (1923), Dr. Appleby's Daughters (1925), and Purple-Splendour Island (1933).
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WHIPPLE, DOROTHY (26 Feb 1893 – 14 Sept 1966)
(née Stirrup)
1920s – 1960s
Popular novelist whose works have been revived by
Persephone and has become their bestselling author. She published 12 volumes
of fiction for adults and four more for children. Her eight full-length
novels are Young Anne (1927), High Wages (1930), Greenbanks (1932), They Knew Mr. Knight (1934), The Priory (1939), They Were Sisters (1943), Because of the Lockwoods (1949), and Someone at a Distance (1953). The
last, widely considered her best, is the tragic, lovely tale of a happy
marriage destroyed and a woman's efforts to rebuild her life in the
aftermath. It's also highly evocative of the immediate postwar years. The Priory is set during the leadup to
the war, and includes a poignant scene in which a pregnant woman imagines her
chances of surviving a bombing raid. (As a side note, E. M. Delafield's Provincial Lady in Wartime, published
the following year, recommends The
Priory to a friend as the perfect wartime reading.) And Hugh Walpole said
of Greenbanks that it contained
"some of the best creation of living men and women that we have had for
a number of years in the English novel." Whipple's four other volumes of
fiction include the novella Every Good
Deed (1946) and three story collections, which have been recombined by
Persephone into two new volumes, The
Closed Door and Other Stories (2007) and Every Good Deed and Other Stories (2016). She also published a
memoir of her childhood, The Other Day
(1950), and Random Commentary
(1966), subtitled "Books and Journals Kept from 1925 Onwards" and
compiled from her working notebooks. The latter's first half contains
glimpses of her earliest successes as an author, as well as the trials and
concerns of day-to-day life, while the second half is composed of her
impressions of wartime life. After her final novel got a disappointingly
lukewarm reaction, she published four children's titles. I've written about
Whipple several times—see here.
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Whistler,
Mary
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
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WHISTLER, THERESA [THOMASIN DOLIGNON]
(23 Apr 1927 – 20 Jul 2007)
(née Furse)
1950s, 1980s
Best known for her biography of Walter de la Mare, Imagination of the Heart (1993), she had earlier written two
children's books, The River Boy
(1955), which she also illustrated, and Rushavenn
Time (1988). She apparently married her brother-in-law a few years after
her sister's premature death.
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WHITAKER, MALACHI (23 Sept 1895 – 7
Jan 1976)
(pseudonym of Marjorie Olive Whitaker, née Taylor,
aka Ethel Firebrace [with Gay TAYLOR])
1920s – 1930s
Wildly acclaimed yet enigmatic author of four story collections—Frost in April (1929), No Luggage? (1930), Five for Silver (1932), and Honeymoon (1934). Vita SACKVILLE-WEST
compared her to Katherine Mansfield. In 1937, she published a humorous work
in collaboration with Gay TAYLOR called The
Autobiography of Ethel Firebrace, purportedly the memoir of a
self-absorbed best-selling author of delicate sensibilities—see here. She published a memoir, And So Did I (1939), described by ODNB: "Narrated in her crisp and conversational style, it is
a frank if fragmented account of life just before the outbreak of the Second
World War. Like her short stories it is poised on a knife edge." In the
same year, despite all the acclaim she had received, she announced she had
nothing further to say, and thereafter published no new work. Her Selected Stories appeared in 1946, but
then it wasn't until 1984's The Crystal
Fountain that her work appeared in print again. In 2017 Persephone published
a new collection called The Journey
Home and Other Stories.
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WHITBY, BEATRICE [JANIE] (c1856 – 20
Jan 1931)
(married name Hicks)
1880s – 1910s
Daughter and wife of doctors, and author of about a dozen novels which ODNB
describes as "intelligent, very mildly feminist fiction".
Titles include The Awakening of Mary
Fenwick (1889), Part of the
Property (1890), Sunset (1897),
Bequeathed (1900), Flower and Thorn (1901), The Whirligig of Time (1906), The Result of an Accident (1908), and Rosamund (1911).
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WHITE, AGNES ROMILLY (4 Aug 1872 – 11
Jun 1945)
1930s
Irish author of two novels—Gape Row
(1934) and Mrs. Murphy Buries the
Hatchet (1936). Both were reprinted in the 1980s by White Row publishers
in Belfast. That publisher described the first book as "[a] boisterous,
rich, nostalgic book which immerses the reader in the cheerful chaos of
everyday life in a small Irish villlage on the eve of the First World
War." The second takes place in the same village ten years after the war
has ended.
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WHITE, ANTONIA (31 Mar 1899 – 10 Apr 1980)
(pseudonym of Eirene
Adeline Hopkinson, née Botting, earlier married names Green-Wilkinson and
Smith)
1930s - 1970
Translator and
novelist best known for her debut, Frost
in May (1933), an account of a young girl in a Catholic boarding school,
which has the distinction of having been chosen as the very first Virago
reprint and has been called the female equivalent of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
White was by all counts a troubled soul—she was committed to Bethlem Hospital
(aka "Bedlam") for several months in 1922, suffered lifelong
anguish due to doubts about her Catholicism, and had troubled relationships
with men (husbands and otherwise) and with her children. Her personal turmoil prevented her from
publishing a second novel until The
Lost Traveller in 1950, a sort of sequel to Frost in May (though the main character has a different name).
She continued the story in two more novels, The Sugar House (1952) and Beyond
the Glass (1954). She also published a story collection, Strangers (1954). She worked on but
never completed an additional novel, a portion of which was published along
with her memoirs in As Once in May
(1983). She also wrote two children's books—Minka and Curdy (1957) and Living
with Minka and Curdy: A Marmalade Cat and His Siamese Wife (1970). Her
diaries were published in the early 1990s. As a translator, White is known
for her English translations of multiple works by Colette, as well as the
likes of Maupassant, Voltaire, and Marguerite Duras.
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WHITE, CONSTANCE MARY (2 Nov 1903 – 12 Sept 2004)
(née Lockett)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than 40 volumes of fiction. Apart from five hospital stories,
beginning with Cadet Nurse at St. Mark's
(1958), which seem to have been marketed to adults, her work was primarily
for children, many for the "teen" market that publishers had only
just discovered. Sims & Clare counted 17 girls' school stories, often
with creative settings. These include A
Sprite at School (1947), Ponies at
Westways (1949), four books set in a ballet school (1951-58), Film Stars at Riverlea (1952), Schoolgirl Reporter (1953), and School Afloat (1965), about a school
on a cruise ship. Non-school titles include The Adventurous Three (1939), Set
to Music (1954), Lynne Goes East
(1959), Rashid to the Rescue
(1961), The House with Blue Shutters
(1969), and Mystery of Matmos
(1970).
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WHITE, DOROTHY VERNON [HORACE] (31 Jan 1877 – 27 Jul 1967)
(née Smith)
1900s – 1910s
Author of three
novels—Miss Mona (1907), Frank Burnet (1909), and Isabel (1911). Her Times obit describes Frank Burnet as "a moral fable
about weakness and strength of character, written with great intelligence and
gusto." At age 30, she married William Hale White, who wrote fiction as
"Mark Rutherford" and was 45 years older than she. He died only two
years later, and she stopped publishing fiction. However, her Times obit also singles out The Groombridge Diary (1924), a
powerful account of their life together. For many years, White took Bible
classes for impoverished youths, and wrote about her experiences in Twelve Years with My Boys (1912).
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WHITE, ETHEL LINA (2 Apr 1876 – 13 Aug 1944)
1920s – 1940s
Author of seventeen novels, many of them thrillers involving young women in
peril. By far her best remembered work is The
Wheel Spins (1936), the source for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Lady Vanishes (1938, many reprints
of Wheel make use of Hitchcock's
title), which deals with the disappearance of a governess from a moving
train. Hitchcock adapted the novel freely. White's first major success was Some Must Watch (1933), which was also
destined to be made into a famous film—Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1948, subsequent reprints also make use of
this title), about a young woman spending the night in a remote Cornwall
mansion, whose fellow guests include a serial strangler. The Third Eye (1937), reprinted by Greyladies, is about a young
games mistress at a girl's school going up against the evil second-in-command
of the school. And While She Sleeps
(1940), according to Contemporary
Authors, is about a woman
"randomly picked to be the victim of a murder. … [A]s one irritation
after another plagues her on the trip, she feels her luck has dried up.
Unbeknownst to her, however, each of these annoyances actually save her from
becoming the victim of foul play." White's other titles are The Wish-Bone (1927), 'Twill Soon Be Dark (1929), The Eternal Journey (1930), Put Out the Light (1931), Fear Stalks the Village (1932), The First Time He Died (1935), Wax (1936), The Elephant Never Forgets (1937), Step in the Dark (1938), She
Faded Into Air (1941), Midnight
House (1942), The Man Who Loved
Lions (1943), and They See in
Darkness (1944).
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WHITE, HEATHER (12 Feb 1902 – 2 Jan 1979)
(pseudonym of Jess[ie]
Mary Mardon Ducat, married name Foster)
1920s – 1950s
Author of 12 works of fiction, mostly for children. She wrote several Guiding
adventures, as well as two school stories—The
New Broom at Prior's Rigg (1938) and The
Two B's and Becky (1939). Her first book, The Extravagant Year (1929), seems to be an adult novel, and The Golden Road (1931) may be as well.
Others include Daffodil Row (1937),
Watersmeet (1940), Rowan in Search of a Name (1941), and Holiday in Rome (1955).
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WHITE, SYLVIA SCOTT (dates unknown)
1960s
Author of two girls' pony stories—Ten-Week
Stables (1960) and its sequel, Pony
Pageant (1965). See here for more details.
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WHITEHEAD, ELIZABETH (dates unknown)
1940s
Author of one children's title, Adventurous
Exile (1946), about a party of English schoolgirls and teachers trapped
in France during World War II. There are a couple of religious-themed titles
with similar author names, but it's unclear if they're by the same person.
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WHITEHEAD, KATE (5 Aug 1896 – 22 Feb
1978)
(married name Oxley)
1920s – 1930s
Wife of Selwyn Oxley, a pioneer educator of the deaf. Author of two novels, The King's Legacy (1928) and For Prince Charlie (1929), and several
children's books about cats, including Stubby:
The Story of a Cat as Told by Himself (1931) and Kellyann: Being the Story of a Manx Cat (1933).
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Whitehouse,
Peggy
see MUNDY-CASTLE, FRANCES
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WHITELAW, MARGOT (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of more than a dozen short romantic novels, including The Flirting Bride (1931), A Wilful Woman (1932), A Broadway Butterfly (1932), The Girl Who Interfered (1932), The Marriage of Mockery (1933), Betty Breaks Away (1935), Beyond Her Reach (1936), Double-Crossed (1937), The Climber (1939),
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WHITHAM, GRACE I[SABELLE]. (7 Feb 1874 – 16 Nov 1965)
1900s – 1930s
Author of more than 20 volumes of fiction, mostly historical children's
titles. These include Squire and Page:
A Story of Olden Days (1905), Basil
the Page: A Story of the Days of Queen Elizabeth (1908), The Nameless Prince: A Tale of Plantagenet
Days (1912), and When I Was a King
(1937). Works that appear to be for adults include Marjorie Conyers (1921), As
I Hear Tell (1924), Stinging
Nettles (1927), and Sarah's Husband
(1929).
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WHITING, MARY BRADFORD (1863 – 9 Dec 1935)
1880s – 1930s
Biographer and author of more than 20 works of fiction for both adults and
children. Titles include Stronger than
Fate (1889), The Torchbearers
(1904), Meriel's Career: A Tale of
Literary Life in London (1914), A
Daughter of the Empire (1919), and a girls' school story called What Hazel Did (1924). She also
published two biographical books about Dante.
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WHITLOCK, PAMELA (21 Mar 1920 – 3 Jun
1982)
1930s – 1940s
Novelist and children's author, best known for four popular children's books
co-written with with Katharine HULL, most famously The Far-Distant Oxus (1937), written when the pair were still
teenagers, about six children on their own in Exmoor. Their other
collaborations are Escape to Persia
(1938), Oxus in Summer (1939), and Crowns (1947). On her own, Whitlock
also published one adult novel, The
Sweet Spring (1952). The dust jacket or a 1960 edition of Oxus featured a publisher's advert for
another book by Whitlock, called The
Brockens: A Country Family, to be published the following year, but in
fact this book never seems to have appeared. That the advert contains a
fairly detailed summary of the book suggests it was well under way or ever
finished, but if so it is unknown what became of the manuscript.
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WHITNEY, JANET PAYNE (6 Sept 1889 -
1974)
(née Payne)
1940s – 1950s
Biographer and novelist. A Quaker who married an American and moved to
Pennsylvania, Whitney wrote six novels, some or all about 19th century
Quakers. Titles are Jennifer (1941),
Judith (1944), Intrigue in Baltimore (1952), The
Quaker Bride (1954), The Ilex
Avenue (1956), and Not for Ransom
(1959). She also published four biographies, including Abigail Adams (1949).
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Whittingham, Sara
see BRADLEY, NORAH MARY
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WHITTLE, NORAH [MARGUERITE] (20 Sept
1895 – 24 Jul 1971)
1950s – 1970s
Author of two early children's titles, The
Moated Manor and The Ring (both
1950), followed by more than a dozen novels which seem to be romantic in
nature, including Caroline (1964), Grapes from Thorns (1965), Crowsfell (1967), Poor Little Rich Girl (1973), and Thyme and Rue (1975).
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WHITTON, BARBARA (1921 – 21 Sept 2016)
(pseudonym of Margaret Hazel Chitty, née Watson)
1940s
Author of a single wartime novel, Green
Hands (1943), an enthusiastic and entertaining tale of a group of girls
in the Women's Land Army during World War II, which went through at least
seven printings. Assuming that the book was based on her personal
experiences, it's appropriate that she seems to have later worked as a
florist. (Thank you to Peter Andrews for providing information about
Whitton.)
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WHITTON, [FLORENCE] DOROTHY (16 May 1901
– 31 Oct 1984)
1940s
Author of two novels—White Lady
(1946), about which I could find no details, and Halo of Dreams (1948), a historical novel about a young girl
inspired by Joan of Arc who gets involved with trying to put Henry VI back on
the throne.
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WHYTE, CHRISTINA GOWANS (11 Jan 1869 –
18 Jul 1961)
(married name Geddes)
1900s - 1910
Scottish author of seven children's books. Her debut, The Adventures of Merrywink (1906), won a £100 Bookman competition. The others are The Story-Book Girls (1906), Nina's Career (1908), Uncle Hilary's Nieces (1909), For the Sake of Kitty (1909), The Five Macleods (1909), and The Girls Next Door (1910).
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Whyte, Violet
see STANNARD, HENRIETTE ELIZA
VAUGHN
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Wick, Stuart Mary
see FREEMAN, KATHLEEN
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WICKSTEED, HILDA M[ARY]. (3 Aug 1884 – 23 Oct 1950)
1920s – 1930
Author of three children's books—Titch:
The Story of a Dog (1920), Titch
& Jock (1922), and Jerry &
Grandpa (1930)—as well as a biography of her father, engineer Charles
Wicksteed (1933).
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WILCOX, BARBARA [MAUD/MAUDE] (1 Jul 1896 – 19 Aug 1964)
(married name Smith)
1940s
Author of four children's books—Bunty
Brown: Probationer (1940), Bunty
Brown's Bargain (1942), Bunty of
the Flying Squad (1943), and Susan
at Herron's Farm (1946)—as well as cookbooks and non-fiction about rural
life with her future husband.
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WILCOX, SUSAN (dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, Twins at Highfields (1954).
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WILENSKI, MARJORIE [ISOLA] (26 Jun 1889 – 25 May 1965)
(née Harland)
1940s
Wife of art
critic and historian Reginald Wilenski. Author of one novel, Table Two (1942), about a group of
women translators in the fictional Ministry of Foreign Intelligence in
London, just before and during the Blitz. I reviewed it here, and it was reprinted in 2019 as a Furrowed
Middlebrow book from Dean Street Press. On the 1939 England & Wales
Register, she was working as a luggage buyer for a department store
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WILKES, MARY (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of one novel,The Only
Door Out (1945), discussed in Anna Bogen's Women's University Fiction,
1880–1945. Other details
about her are lacking.
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WILKINSON, ELLEN [CICELY] (8 Oct 1891 – 6 Feb 1947)
1920s – 1930s
Journalist, political figure, activist, and author of
two novels. She is most widely known as one of the first women MPs,
representing Jarrow, and was part of the iconic 1936 Jarrow March, about
which she published the non-fiction The
Town that was Murdered (1939). She was later a junior minister under
Churchill during World War II and became Minister of Education in 1944, only
the second woman to serve as a minister. Her first novel, Clash (1928), set during the 1926
General Strike, provides fascinating insight from Wilkinson's own
experiences. Her second novel was a mystery, The Division Bell Mystery (1932), about the murder of a wealthy
financier in the House of Commons.
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WILLANS, KATHARINE M[ARY]. (27 Aug 1907 – 27 Sept 1965)
(married name Rustige, aka
Martha Holt)
1930s
Author of four novels—Faith Unfaithful
(1933), The Proceedings of the Society
(1935), Virgin Martyr (1936), and The Banker and His Daughter (1939),
the last published under her pseudonym.
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WILLARD, BARBARA [MARY] (12 Mar 1909 – 18 Feb 1994)
1930s – 1990s
Author of more than 70 volumes of fiction. She began with nearly a dozen
adult novels, including Love in Ambush
(1930), Name of Gentleman (1933), Joy Befall Thee (1934), about a family
of theatrical costumiers, Set Piece
(1938), The Dogs Do Bark (1948),
and Portrait of Philip (1951),
about Philip Sidney. It's unclear whether 1951's Celia Scarfe, published in the U.S., might be an American edition
of an earlier book of if it wasn't published in the U.K. at all—it's theme of
an unwed mother giving up her son for adoption, then getting a chance to
adopt him back, could possibly have been unpalatable to her British
publisher? After 1958's Winter in
Disguise, she turned to children's fiction, and was most famous for her
Mantlemass series, nine tales, beginning with The Lark and the Laurel (1970), tracing one English family from
the 15th to the 17th century. Other children's titles include a trio of tales
about children spending holidays with their lively aunt—Snail and the Pennithornes (1957), Snail and the Pennithornes Next Time (1958), and Snail and the Pennithornes and the
Princess (1960)—as well as Eight
for a Secret (1960), The Suddenly
Gang (1963), The Richleighs of
Tantamount (1966), The Battle of
Wednesday Week (1968), The Country
Maid (1978), and The Ranger's
Daughters (1992). I've written about her here.
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WILLCOCKS, M[ARY]. P[ATRICIA]. [SUSAN] (17 Mar 1869 – 22 Nov 1952)
1900s – 1930s
Critic, biographer, translator, and author of sixteen works of fiction. Some
of her early fiction, such as Widdicombe
(1905) and A Man of Genius (1908),
was influenced by Hardy. Other titles include The Sleeping Partner (1919), Ropes
of Sand (1926), Delicate Dilemmas
(1927), and The Cup and the Lip
(1929).
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WILLCOX, KATHLEEN M[ARY]. (30 Jul 1899 – 24 Apr 1990)
1920s – 1960s
Author of three girls' school stories—The
Mystery of the Third Form Room (1926), Averil's Ambition (1927), and The
Stanford Twins at St. Faith's (1934). She is probably the same author who
wrote travel books for children in the 1960s. John Herrington found a
newspaper story from 1938 about a court case in which Willcox and a woman
with whom she had lived for five years sued one another for alleged expenses
and debts.
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WILLETT,
HILDA [MARY] (11 Nov 1878 – 13 Apr 1960)
1920s – 1940s
Author of
eleven novels, many or all with crime themes. Titles are Tragedy in Pewsey Chart (1929), Diamonds of Death (1930), So
It Goes On (1930), April, May and
June (1931), Murder at the Party
(1931), Bucket in Well (1932), Mystery on the Centre Court (1933), Found Shot (1934), Accident in Piccadilly (1935), Peril in Darkness (1935), and It's Quiet in the Country (1946).
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WILLIAMS, ELMA M[ARY]. (3 Jun 1913 – 3 Aug 1971)
1950s – 1960s
Author of 16
volumes of fiction, some or all of which appear to be romantic thrillers.
Titles of these include The Waiting
Years (1957), To Africa—the Bride
(1958), Love in a Mist (1960), Strange Legacy (1961), Escape to Death (1961), Tomorrow a Stranger (1962), Owls Do Cry (1964), and Where Is Sylvia? (1967). Paul's Secret Courage (1967) appears
to be her one work for children. In later years, she was better known for her
memoirs about her animal sanctuary, Pant Glas, which overlooked Dovey
Estuary. These titles include Pig in
Paradise (1964), Animals Under My
Feet (1965), Heaven on my Doorstep
(1970), and Ride a Cock Horse
(1971).
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WILLIAMS, GRACE LLOYD (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Her Son's Choice (1932).
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WILLIAMS, [ANNIE] MARGUERITE (dates
unknown)
1920s – 1940s
Biographer and author of eight novels, possibly with religious themes—The Garden of Healing (1925), Splendid Joy (1926), Steeps to the Stars (1927), A Mother of Men (1929), The Hands of a Man (1934), Our Folk (1937), Just Common Clay (1939), and Be
Merry, My Dear (1942). She also published Blazing the Trail: A Pageant of British Baptist History (1940).
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WILLIAMS, M[ARION]. P[ERCY]. (1920 – 17 Jul 2015)
(née McLoughlin)
1950s – 1970s
Irish author of seven children's titles—Nigerian
Holiday (1959), All Because of Dash
(1960), Jewel of the Light (1961), Adventures at Sandend (1963), Teenage Talking Point (1964), Terry's Triumphs (1973), and Friends for Jeremy (1975). A 1954
passenger list shows her arriving in the U.K. from a previous home in
Nigeria, planning to settle in Belfast with her missionary husband. She later
lived in Swansea.
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Williams, Peggy
see EVANS, MARGIAD
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WILLIAMS, URSULA MORAY (19 Apr 1911 –
17 Oct 2006)
(married name John)
1930s – 1980s
Illustrator and author of more than
60 children's titles. Her best known work is probably Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
(1938), about a toy pony who sets out in the world to make a living. She also
published pony stories and family adventures. Titles include Jean-Pierre (1931), Anders and Marta (1935), A Castle for John-Peter (1941), Gobbolino the Witch's Cat (1942), The Three Toymakers (1945), The Binklebys at Home (1951), The Binklebys on the Farm (1953), The Moonball (1958), Beware of This Animal (1964), The Cruise of the "Happy-Go-Gay"
(1967), Man on a Steeple
(1971), The Kidnapping of My
Grandmother (1972), No Ponies for
Miss Pobjoy (1975), and Paddy on
the Island (1987).
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WILLIAMS, WINIFRED (dates unknown)
1930s – 1940s
Author of a story collection, Fellow-Mortals
(1936), and one novel, The Beehive
(1941), set in a large Yorkshire mill. According to this site, she was born in
Stainland and taught at the Bolton Brow School in Sowerby Bridge, but there
are still too many possibilities in the records to positively identify her.
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WILLIAMS-ELLIS, [MARY] AMABEL (ANNABEL) [NASSAU] (25 May 1894 – 27
Aug 1984)
(née Strachey)
1920s – 1930s
Cousin of Lytton Strachey as well as Dorothy STRACHEY and Marjorie
STRACHEY. She began writing in collaboration with her husband, architect
Clough Williams-Ellis. She later published numerous non-fiction works for
children, and several collections of fairy tales because she felt there was
“a real need for authentic re-tellings of traditional tales if Disney and
Enid BLYTON were not to reign supreme." She published five novels,
including Noah’s Ark (1925), about
a young couple vainly resisting their instincts to marry and reproduce, The Wall of Glass (1927), about class
conflict, The Big Firm (1928), To Tell the Truth (1933), a fable
about communism and capitalism, and Learn
to Love First (1939). She published a volume of stories, Volcano (1931), based on a 1928 trip
to Russia. A book of games Williams-Ellis wrote with her husband, In and Out of Doors (1937), was
reportedly popular during World War II as a means of entertaining children
during long nights in air raid shelters. Headlong
Down the Years: A Tale of To-Day (1951), written with her husband, is
described by the Orlando Project as a satire written in the style of Thomas
Love Peacock. I reviewed her first novel here.
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Williamson, Ethel
see VEHEYNE, CHERRY
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WILLMOT, [ANNIE] FLORENCE (17 Oct 1857 – 19 Apr 1955)
1900s – 1920s
Author of seven volumes of Christian-themed children's fiction, including one
school story, Care of Uncle Charlie (1912).
Other titles are The Tender Light of
Home (1908), Benedicite: A Karoo
Reverie (1909), Loyal Hearts and
True (1910), The Heart of a Friend:
A Story for Girls (1911), Kitty and
Kit (1912), and Sheila's
Inheritance (1924).
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WILLOUGHBY, [LOUISE] CECILIA (4 Jun 1905
– 26 Aug 1985)
(married name Craven)
1930s
Author of three novels, including Friday's
Moon (1932), which the Bookman compared
(unfavorably) with Mary WEBB's Precious
Bane. The others are Mellory's Yard
(1934) and The Silver Fountain
(1935).
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WILMOT-BUXTON,
ETHEL MARY (c1870 – 22 Apr 1923)
1880s – 1920s
Prolific author
of children's non-fiction and retellings of classic stories and folk tales.
Her late novel Gildersleeves (1921)
is included in the Encyclopaedia of Girls'
School Stories on a list of grownup school stories.
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WILSON, DESEMEA (20 Jun 1878 – 16 Mar 1964)
(née Newman, aka Barbara
Desmond, aka Diana Patrick)
1920s – 1940s
Mother of Romilly CAVAN. Author of more than 30 romantic novels, most under the name "Diana
Patrick", including The Islands of
Desire (1920), Dusk of Moonrise
(1922), Dreaming Spires (1923), Gay Girl (1927), Outpost of Arden (1930), Fragile
Armour (1936), and A Little Season
(1943).
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WILSON, G[ERTRUDE]. M[ARY]. (25 Jul 1899 – 13 Jul 1986)
(née Bryant)
1940s – 1970s
Schoolteacher, comic strip writer, and author of more than two dozen novels,
many of them mystery novels with supernatural elements, often featuring
series character Miss Purdy, a mystery writer herself, and Inspector Lovick.
Titles include Risky (1948), Cousin Jenny (1954), Bury That Poker (1957), It Rained That Friday (1960), Witchwater (1961), Murder on Monday (1963), Nightmare Cottage (1963), Cake for Caroline (1967), Death is Buttercups (1969), She Kept On Dying (1972), and Death on a Broomstick (1977). John at
Pretty Sinister has posted enthusiastically about her work—see here, and, inspired by John,
Martin Edwards made Nightmare Cottage
one of his "forgotten books" here.
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WILSON, ROMER (26 Dec 1891 – 11 Jan 1930)
(pseudonym of Florence
Roma Muir Wilson, married name O'Brien)
1910s – 1920s
Novelist, playwright, and biographer, whose fiction often focuses on artists
and the impacts of war. Martin Schüler
(1918), is about a relentlessly ambitious German composer, while If All
These Young Men (1919),
according to ODNB, is about "the enervating impact of the war on
the home front." The Death of Society (1921), which won the
Hawthornden Prize, traces the love of an Englishman for an older Norwegian
women. Her other novels were The Grand Tour (1923), Dragon's Blood (1926),
and Greenlow (1927). She also published two novellas, Latterday
Symphony (1927) and The Hill of Cloves (1929), as well as three
collections of fairy tales from around the world. Her one biography was All
Alone: The Life and Private History of Emily Jane Brontë (1928). Wilson
died of tuberculosis at age 38.
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WILSON, THEODORA WILSON (13 Jan 1865 – 8 Nov 1941)
1900s – 1940
Social worker,
Biblical writer, and author of more than 40 volumes of fiction for children
and adults. Among her children's fiction are two school stories, The Founders of Wat End School (1932)
and The St Berga Swimming Pool
(1939). Other fiction includes T'Bacca
Queen (1901), Father M.P.
(1904), Sarah the Valiant (1907), Moll o' the Toll-Bar (1911), The Children of Trafalgar Square
(1915), Netherdale for Ever! (1919),
The Undaunted Trio (1923), The Explorer's Son (1928), The Sole Survivor (1935), Margot Fights Through (1936), and The Disappearing Twins: A Lakeland Yarn
(1940). Wilson is discussed in some depth in Rediscovering Forgotten Radicals, edited by Angela Ingram and
Daphne Patai. She was a committed pacifist and a Quaker.
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WILSON-FOX, ALICE [THEODORA] (1863 – 4 Dec 1943)
(née Raikes)
1900s – 1920s
Author of about
10 works of fiction for adults and children, including The General's Choice
(1905), A Dangerous Inheritance (1909), Hearts and Coronets
(1910), Love in the Balance (1911), A Regular Madam (1912), Too
Near the Throne (1918), and Charmian: Chauffeuse (1925).
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WILTSHIRE, MARY (1887 – 7 May 1958)
(pseudonym of Frances Mary Isborn)
1920s – 1940s
Cellist, music teacher, and author of ten novels, often set in and around
Wiltshire. Titles are Patricia Ellen
(1924), Thursday's Child (1925), The Lesser Breed (1926), The Burying Road (1928), He Who Come After (1931), John Quaintance (1932), Heritage (1933), Cockle and Barley (1935), To-Morrow
(1938), and These Maintain the City
(1947).
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WINCH, EVELYN M. (17 Jul 1895 – 23 May
1939)
(pseudonym of Marie Elspeth Agnes Winch, née
Makgill)
1920s – 1930s
Born in Auckland to British parents, but living in Scotland by age 4. Author
of 16 novels, most of them romantic with mystery and suspense elements.
Titles include The Mountain of Gold
(1928), The Hunting of Hilary
(1929), Enemy's Kiss (1935), The Luck Shop (1935), The Dark Path (1936), Passport to Happiness (1937), Happily Ever After (1938), and Mankiller (1939). In 1939, with mental
health issues exacerbated by overwork and anxieties about the approaching
war, Winch committed suicide. Steve at Bear Alley wrote at some length about
her here.
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Winch, John
see BOWEN, MARJORIE
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WINGATE, LITITIA BERYL (11 Dec 1881 –
24 Oct 1944)
(née Tucker, aka Mrs. Alfred Wingate)
1920s – 1930s
Novelist and historian who specialized in writing about China. Her six novels
are A Servant of the Mightiest
(1927), about Genghis Khan, Jên
(1928), about Marco Polo, Before Sunset
(1929), Thereabouts (1933), London Luck (1933), and Within a Generation (1939).
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WINNCROFT, EILEEN (1 Nov 1901 - 1992)
(pseudonym of Henrietta Winifred
Macloughlin, née Pryke, earlier married name Franckeiss, aka Martha Blount)
1930s
Journalist and author of two novels—Be
a Gent, Little Woman, Be a Gent (1938) and Angels in Ealing (1939), both discussed by Brad Bigelow at
Neglected Books here. She wrote for The Daily Express under her Blount
pseudonym, and also collaborated with Else Wendel on her memoir of life in
Germany during wartime, Hausfrau at War
(1957). She later wrote about child-rearing. Thank you to Brad for the heads
up about his discoveries and identification of her.
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Winstanley, Edith Maud
see HULL, E[DITH]. M[AUDE].
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WINSTANLEY, LILIAN (18 Nov 1875 – 28 Sept 1960)
1900s, 1920s
Literary
scholar, poet, and author of five novels—Stolen
Banns (1907), The Winged Lion
(1908), The Scholar Vagabond
(1909), The Double Disappearance
(1925) and The Face on the Stair
(1927). One wonders if the latter two could be mysteries or thrillers. She
wrote several acclaimed critical works about Shakespeare, as well as volumes
on Shelley and Tolstoy.
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Winter, John Strange
see STANNARD, HENRIETTE ELIZA
VAUGHN
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Winterton, Mark
see KIDD, BEATRICE ETHEL
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WOGAN, JANE REES (13 Jul 1899 – 17 Nov 1979)
(pseudonym of Janet Evelyn
Cousins)
1930s
Author of two historical novels—Go
Down, Moses (1936) and Green
Heritage (1937)—both apparently set in Jamaica after the abolition of
slavery.
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WOLFE, ELIZABETH [SOPHIA FRANCIS] (8 Mar 1898 – 18 Jan 1966)
(née Heygate, aka Evylyn
Fabyan [with French author Fabienne Lafargue])
1940s
Sister of novelist John E. M. Heygate, reportedly the model for John Beaver
in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.
Wolfe co-authored, with French author Fabienne Lafargue, several novels under
the pseudonym Evylyn Fabyan. John Herrington found traces of a joint contract
with the two for Painted Toys
(1940), The Varleys of the New Forest
(1941), I Do Betray (1942), and In Loving Thee (1943). It's not clear
whether a fifth novel using the name, Margot
(1945), is also by both authors. According to a blurb, The Varleys of the New Forest is set in and around the movie
industry in Hollywood.
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WOOD, LESLEY (dates unknown)
1920s
Author of a single girls' school story, The
Tangled Twins (1928).
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WOOD, LORNA M[ARY]. (16 Jun 1913 – 10 Dec 2010)
(married name Swire)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than 20 volumes of fiction, best known for her series of
children's books about the "hag" Dowsabel, which included The People in the Garden (1954), The Hag Calls for Help (1957), Holiday on Hot Bricks (1958), Seven-League Ballet Shoes (1959), Hags on Holiday (1960), Hag in the Castle (1962), Rescue by Broomstick (1963), and Hags by Starlight (1970). Her first
published title was The Crumb-Snatchers
(1933), a novel which the Spectator
called "vivacious." Two subsequent titles, Gilded Sprays (1935) and The
Hopeful Travellers (1936), appear to also be for adults. Her childhood,
which she described in a Contemporary
Authors entry, was clearly unconventional—no formal education, raised in
a home without gas or electricity, then discovered as a musical prodigy and
giving regular concerts. She and her husband visited Spain during the Spanish
Civil War, and she contributed a piece about their experiences,
"Correspondent's Wife," to the 1939 anthology Nothing But Danger.
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WOOD, MOLLY (19 Oct 1909 – 16 Oct 1994)
(married names Phillips
and Troke, aka Hester Bourne, aka Lyn Arnold)
1940s, 1960s – 1970s
Author of four early novels as Lyn Arnold—Joy
as It Flies (1940), The Home-Coming
(1943), Tea with Lemon and Flash of Joy
(1943), and Holiday from Life
(1945), followed by seven later crime and romance novels as Hester Bourne—The Spanish House (1962), In the Event of My Death (1964), Where Is Evie Alton? (1968), After the Island (1969), The Red Raincoat (1970), A Scent of Roses (1971), and The House Across the Water (1972).
Could she have used other pseudonyms in the years in between?
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WOODGATE, MILDRED VIOLET (20 Mar 1886
– 27 Feb 1978)
(aka Oliver Barton)
1920s – 1930s
Author of numerous biographies of religious figures, as well as at least
eight novels, including mysteries and adventures. Steve at Bear Alley
discussed her here a couple of years ago. He describes The Two Houses on the Cliff (1931) as
a mystery with romantic elements, and quotes a review of Pauline's Lady (1931) that compares it to the earlier works of M.
E. Braddon. Other titles are The
Children of Danecourt Park (1924), The
Eye of the Peacock (1928), The
Secret of the Sapphire Ring (1930), The
City of Death (1934), The Silver
Mirror (1935), and The Ring of Fate
(1939).
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WOODHAM-SMITH, CECIL [BLANCHE] (29 Apr 1896 – 16 Mar 1977)
(née Fitzgerald, aka Janet
Gordon)
1930s – 1940s
Best known as the author of four acclaimed historical volumes—Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 (1950),
The Reason Why (1953), about the
Light Brigade, The Great Hunger:
Ireland 1845-9 (1962), and Queen
Victoria: Her Life and Times Vol. 1 (1972) (she died before completing a
planned volume 2)—she began her career with three pseudonymous novels—April Sky (1938), Tennis Star (1939), and Just
Off Bond Street (1940). In an advertisement, the last of these was
described as "The happiest kind of escapist reading—a vivid, fast-moving
love story of Elizabeth and Larry, told in a series of enthralling episodes."
A blurb for the first calls her "a writer whose short stories are famous
on both sides of the Atlantic."
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WOODHOUSE, RENA (3 Sept 1898 – 21 Aug 1965)
(full name Rena de Vere
Woodhouse, Baroness Terrington, née Swiney, other married names Howell,
Humphrey, and Billingham, aka Rena Woodhouse)
1930s
Journalist, socialite, and author of two novels—All That For Nothing (1931), in which she stated that she had
tried to capture the spirit of her youth, and It Happened to Me (1937), the latter as Rena Woodhouse. Her third
marriage was to Harold James Selbourne Woodhouse, 2nd Baron Terrington, but
their wedded bliss was short-lived as he soon after spent several years in
prison.
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Woodroffe,
Daniel
see WOODS, MARY
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WOODS, MARGARET LOUISA (20 Nov 1855 – 1 Dec 1945)
(née Bradley)
1880s – 1920s
Poet and author
of ten volumes of fiction. Her well-received debut, A Village Tragedy (1887), deals with the plight of an unwed
mother. The Vagabonds (1894) deals
with a group of circus performers. The
Invader (1907) is the tale of a woman whose hypnotism results in a
sexually free alternate personality. Other novels are Esther Vanhomrigh (1891), Sons
of the Sword (1901), The King's
Revoke (1905), A Poet's Youth
(1923) and The Spanish Lady (1927).
Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1915)
is a collection of children's tales with supernatural themes. She also
published a story collection, Weeping
Ferry and Other Stories (1897).
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WOODS, MARY (1 Oct 1860 – 18 Nov 1943)
(née Woodroffe, aka Daniel
Woodroffe, aka Mrs. J. C. Woods)
1890s – 1910s, 1930s
Author of at least five novels as Daniel
Woofroffe—Her Celestial Husband
(1895), Tangled Trinities (1901), The Beauty Shop (1905), The Rat-Trap (1912), and The Quicksand (1933)—and one as Mrs.
J. C. Woods, The Evil Eye (1903).
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WOODTHORPE, GERTRUDE [IRENE] (7 Aug 1888 – 1 Mar 1977)
1930s
Author of one volume of poetry, Sunflower
and Elm (1930), and one novel, Spring
Head (1935), the latter about a young girl destined to marry the elderly
widower of her good friend. It received an enthusiastic review from the Observer, a paper for which Woodthorpe
was herself a reviewer.
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WOODWARD, AMY [LUCY] (17 Jun 1883 – 23
Jan 1974)
(née Temple)
1930s – 1950s
Author of nearly 20 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Titles
include The Treasure Cave (1931), The Missing Diamonds (1934), The Two Adventurers (1934), The Quest (1938), Michael Drives the Car (1939), Mrs. Bunch's Caravan (1940), The
Serpents (1947), and The Haunted
Headland (1953). Life Is Sweet: The
Intimate Diary of an Author's Wife (1943) is presumably non-fiction, but
if so I haven't determined who her author husband was.
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WOOLF, BELLA SIDNEY (1876 – 24 Nov 1960)
(married names Lock and
Southorn)
1890s – 1930
Sister of
Leonard Woolf. Travel writer and author of nearly a dozen children's books.
Titles include Jerry and Joe: A Tale of
the Two Jubilees (1897), All in a
Castle Fair (1900), Dear Sweet
Anne, or, The Mysterious Veres (1906), The Twins in Ceylon (1909), More
About the Twins in Ceylon (1911), The
Golden House (1912), and Chips of
China (1930). Her travel writing includes the first Western guidebook to
Ceylon, How to See Ceylon (1914),
as well as Killarney and Round About
(1901), Eastern Star-Dust (1922),
and Under the Mosquito Curtain:
Sketches of Life in the East (1935).
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WOOLF, [ADELINE] VIRGINIA (25 Jan 1882 – 28 Mar 1941)
(née Stephen)
1910s – 1940s
A central figure in 20th century British literature,
Woolf published ten novels, as well as short fiction, voluminous essays and
reviews, biography, a play, and a famous diary spanning most of her career.
Her novels are The Voyage Out
(1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway
(1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), The Waves
(1931), Flush (1933), The Years (1937), and Between the Acts (1941). She wrote two
very famous long essays, A Room of
One’s Own (1929), about the difficulties for women of being creative
artists, and Three Guineas (1938),
a passionate condemnation of war and fascism. So much critical and
biographical work on Woolf exists that it's impossible to even approach here,
but Hermione Lee's biography (1996) is an excellent place to begin.
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WOOLFITT, SUSAN (13 May 1907 – 29 Aug 1978)
1940s
Memoirist and author of one children's title, Escape to Adventure (1948), about youngsters having adventures on
the canals of England. This presumably draws on her own experiences as a
canal boat worker during World War II, recounted in her memoir Idle Women (1947).
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WORGER, BIDDY (6 Jun 1891 – 8 Sept
1958)
(full name Edith Worgel, née Wotzel, earlier married
name Gaskins)
1930s
Author of four humorous novels—A Page
from Life (1933), Bessie the Bus
(1934), Dusky Ladies (1935), and The Memoirs of Bartimus Winkle (1936).
Her second husband was a doctor and she apparently spent some years in the
Medical Service in Fiji, where some of her fiction appears to be set.
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WORSLEY-GOUGH, BARBARA [KATHLEEN] (29
Jul 1903 – 10 Oct 1961)
(married name Hale)
1930s – 1950s
Author of seven well-received humorous novels and two mysteries, as well as
books on cooking and fashion. A Feather
in Her Cap (1936) is the tale of several Bright Young Things on a
month-long jaunt to Austria, while The
Sly Hyena (1951), according to the West
Australian, "tells of life in London today, with excursions to
country houses which include a castle in Ireland and a whimsy cottage in the
Surrey hills." I reviewed the former here. The other novels are Public Affaires (1932), Sweet
Home (1933), Nets to Catch the Wind
(1935), Learn to Be a Lady (1938),
and Old Father Antic (1955). Her
two mysteries are Alibi Innings
(1954, reprinted by Penguin), set in the world of cricket, and Lantern Hill (1957), apparently set in
the pop music industry.
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WRAY, I. (20 Apr 1894 – 14 Feb 1969)
(pseudonym of Iris Elaine
Bickford, married name Palliser)
1930s
Author of two mystery novels. The Vye Murder (1930) was praised by The Spectator for its portrayal of
women, and Murder—and Ariadne (1931),
about a murder following a "rowdy house party", was praised by the West Australian as "ingeniously
constructed".
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WRIGHT, CATHERINE [MARY] (22 Jan 1907 – 13 Feb 1985)
(née Pearson)
1930s
Author of three novels—Garment of
Repentance (1935), Primroses and
Peacocks (1936), and Odd Man for
Dinner (1936)—about which details are lacking. Her granddaughter is
Daphne Wright, who publishes crime fiction under her own name and several
pseudonyms.
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WRIGHT, CONSTANCE [METCALFE] HAGBERG (12 Aug 1862 – 11 Jan 1949)
(née Lockwood, earlier
married name Lewis)
1920s
Not to be confused with American author Constance Choate Wright. Author of
one children’s book, Tales of Chinese
Magic (1925), and one novel, The
Chaste Mistress (1930), about the 1779 murder of Martha Ray, which has
also been memorialized by Wordsworth and discussed by Elizabeth JENKINS.
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WRIGHT, DOROTHY (1910 – 1996)
1930s, 1950s
Teacher and writer on basketmaking, playwright, screenwriter, and author six
novels. The Gentle Phoenix (1938),
a comedy about a young woman from a family of artists, earned a comparison to
Margaret KENNEDY's The Constant Nymph.
Laurian and the Wolf (1957) is
about a couple of young newlyweds on honeymoon in Italy and back home in
London. Among the Cedars (1959) is
about the neglected daughter of a divorced couple, who spends a summer in
Austria with a young widow and her family. Her other novels are Shadows in Sunlight (1936), Queens Wilde (1950), and Advance in Love (1953). In spite of a
mini-bio here, which provided the dates
shown above, I've so far been unable to trace her in public records.
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WRIGHT, ESTHER TERRY (17 Jan 1913 –
Oct 1984)
(married name Hunt)
1940s – 1950s,
1970s
Author of three novels. Pilot's Wife's
Tale (1942) is a more or less autobiographical portrayal of her pilot
husband's injuries and recovery after being shot down during the Battle of
Britain. The Prophet Bird (1958),
about a couple struggling in the postwar years, is, according to the author's
son, also autobiographical in theme. Her last, A Vacant Chair (1979), received an amusing review in the Glasgow Herald: "Blowed if I know
how to describe A Vacant Chair, a
rare venture into fiction (only her third in over 30 years) by Esther Terry
Wright. She's an original, no mistake about that, and these random gatherings
about Roof and Arfur, who run a tiny flower shop near Covent Garden, are full
of irrelevant joys." Following her divorce, Wright took her first job at
the age of 46, going to work at the BBC. (Thank you to Charles Hunt for his
information about his mother and her books.)
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WRIGHT, FRANCES C[AMILLIA]. (dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of one school story listed by Sims and Clare, The Mystery of the Trees (1954), and
its sequel, The Mystery of the Lovelace
Luck (1957), a non-school story in which the three main characters are on
holiday together. [Thank you to Nicola Davies for her information on these
titles.]
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Wright, Francesca
see ROBINS DENISE NAOMI
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WYATT, [MARY] ISABEL (22 Oct 1901 – 9 Jul 1992)
(née Foster)
1930s – 1970s
Children's
author and popular reteller of legends and folklore for children. Titles
include The Book of Fairy Princes
(1949), Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book
(1958), The Dream of King Alfdan
(1961), King Beetle-Tamer and Other
Lighthearted Wonder Tales (1963), and The
Witch and the Woodpecker (1970). She also published non-fiction analyses
of Shakespeare and the legends of King Arthur. Two early titles published by
Hodder & Stoughton—Maid's Malady
(1930) and Cheese Carnival
(1934)—appear to be novels, but little information is available beyond the
fact that the former may be a dialect novel set on "the moors."
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WYCHWOOD, SUSAN (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, French Leave (1936), set in a small boarding school in a French
provincial town. I wrote a bit about it here.
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WYLD, DOREEN (DORIS) [ELISE] (8 Oct 1897 – 6 Jul 1969)
1950s
Author of two girls' school stories which, according to Sims & Clare,
were published in reverse order, with Hilary
Takes a Hand (1952) beginning the major plotlines and The Girls of Queen's Mere (1950)
concluding them.
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Wylde, Katharine
see COLVILL, H[ELEN].
H[ESTER].
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WYLIE, I[DA]. A[LEXA]. R[OSS]. (16 Mar 1885 – 4 Nov 1959)
1910s – 1950s
Suffragist, popular short
story writer, and author of more than 30 works of fiction. Towards Morning (1918) was praised as
a relatively balanced portrayal of post-WWI Germans. The Bookman called Ancient
Fires (1924) "[a]n exquisite love story set in a modern background
that smacks nevertheless of witch craft and medievalism and strange, sinister
powers." Keeper of the Flame
(1942) was made into film of the same name starring Katherine Hepburn and
Spencer Tracy. Other titles include The
Native Born, or, The Rajah's People (1910), The Red Mirage (1913), Tristam
Sahib (1917), The Dark House
(1922), The Silver Virgin (1929), Furious Young Man (1936), Strangers Are Coming (1941), Where No Birds Sing (1947), and Claire Serrat (1959).
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WYLLARDE, DOLF (3 Apr 1871 – 10 May 1950)
(pseudonym of Dorothy
Margarette Selby Lowndes)
1890s – 1930s
Sister of Armine GRACE. Author of more than 40 volumes of fiction which, according
to OCEF, span "both exotic
tales and more serious examinations of the predicament of single women."
Titles include A Lonely Little Lady
(1897), As Ye Have Sown (1906), The Unofficial Honeymoon (1911), Youth Will be Served (1913), Exile: An Outpost of Empire (1916), The Lavender Lad (1922), The Water Diviner (1923), The Career of Beauty Darling (1926), Miss Pretty in the Wood (1929), The Girl Groom (1936), and Claimed Under Heriot (1939). Among her
books were at least two for children—Things
(1915) and They Also Serve: A Story for
Girls (1924).
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Wyndham, Esther
see LUTYENS, MARY
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WYNNE, ALICE CLARA VERONICA (2 Dec 1889 – 4 Mar 1969) & EMILY
ADELAIDE (11 Jun 1871 – 12 Jun 1958)
1920s
Sisters and authors of a single novel, Every
Dog (1929), a far-fetched-sounding farce about a businessman
trying to escape his responsibilities. The
Spectator called it “tedious, though funny in places.” Although their
substantial age difference made it plausible for them to be mother and
daughter, they are both clearly on the 1901 census with their parents.
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WYNNE, MAY (1 Jan 1875
– 29 Nov 1949)
(pseudonym of Mabel
Winifred Knowles, aka Lester Lurgan)
1900s – 1940s
Enormously prolific author of nearly 200 books in
all, including adult romance and mystery and children's adventure and holiday
stories as well as numerous girls' school stories. In the early 1910s, she
published six novels under her Lurgan pseudonym. Among her numerous titles
are Ronald Lindsay (1905), The Red Fleur-de-Lys (1912), The Hero of Urbino (1914), Roseleen at School (1920), The Spendthrift Duke (1921), Peggy's First Term (1922), Jean Plays Her Part (1926), Plotted in Darkness (1927), Belle and Her Dragons (1931), The Unseen Witness (1932), Two Maids of Rosemarkie (1937), Sadie Comes to School (1941), The Terror of the Moor (1943), and The Unsuspected Witness (1945).
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WYNNE, PAMELA (15 Apr 1879 – 29 Jan
1959)
(pseudonym of Winifred Mary Scott, née Watson)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than 60 romance novels. Her first success was Ann's An Idiot (1923), which was
filmed as Dangerous Innocence.
Other titles include Penelope Finds Out
(1926), Love In A Mist (1932), Love Begins At Forty (1936), and Merry Widows (1943).
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WYNNE-TYSON, ESMÉ (29 Jun 1898 – 17 Jan 1972)
(pseudonym of Dorothy
Estelle Esmé Innes Ripper, married name Tyson, aka Esnomel, aka Amanda, aka
Diotima)
1920s
Child actress, playwright, philosopher, and
novelist. Security (1927) is,
according to its jacket blurb, about the "lengths a woman will go to to
ensure security for herself and her children when it is jeopardised by the
sins of the father." Quicksand
(1927) was an adaptation of a play she co-wrote with Noël Coward. Three more
novels—Momus (1928), Melody (1929), and Incense and Sweet Cane
(1930)—followed, before she began to focus on journalism and philosophy. She
later wrote three more philosophical novels with John Davys Beresford—Men in the Same Boat (1943), The Riddle of the Tower (1944), and The Gift (1947)—though according to ODNB they collaborated on seven more
that were published under Beresford's name only. She used her Amanda
pseudonym for children's stories and her Diotima pseudonym for journalistic
work.
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WYNNE-WILLSON, D[OROTHY]. [MARY] (22
Feb 1909 – 25 Feb 1932)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Early
Closing (1931), an adult novel set in a boys' school which was a
selection of the Book Society. She died of influenza the following year having
just turned 23. Poignantly, she had a twin sister who lived until 1996. A
memoir of Willson was published by novelist and bibliophile Michael Sadleir.
I wrote in more detail about the novel and her tragic death here.
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YARDLEY, MAUD H[OGARTH]. (6 Mar 1867 – 1 May 1954)
(née Crofts)
1900s – 1910s
Novelist whose
first book, Sinless (1906), is
described by OCEF: "in which a
man returns from India after ten years to meet his wife, with another man
identically circumstanced, meets the wrong one in the fog at Charing Cross
station, and spends the night with her by mistake. By the end they have
contrived to shake off their other halves and are living happily ever
after." Others are Nor All Your
Tears (1908), To-day and Love
(1910), Love's Debt (1913), For You (1913), Because (1913), At the Door
of the Heart (1913), A Man's Life
Is Different, or, The Sleeping Flame (1914), Soulmates (1917), and Mrs.
John (1919). Her birth record clearly shows her name as Maud Hogarth
Croft, but her marriage record shows her name as Maude Mannering, and
Ancestry trees show her parents as Montagu Mannering and Esther Croft,
suggesting that her parents may not have been married at the time of ther
birth.
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YEO, MARGARET [DOROTHY] (1 Apr 1877 –
12 May 1941)
(née Routledge)
1910s - 1940
Author of Christian-themed biographies and fiction. Novels include The Comrade in White (1916), The Abiding City (1916), Salt (1927), A King of Shadows (1928), Wild
Parsley (1929), and Uncertain Glory
(1930).
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YOLLAND, E. (dates unknown)
1890s – 1910s
Unidentified author of seven novels, about which little information is
available. Her debut, In Days of Strife
(1896), is subtitled "Fragments of fact and fiction from a Refugee's
history in France, 1666 to 1685." A bookseller describes Sarolta's Verdict (1899) as a "Gothic
novel set among Hungarian gypsies." And her final novel, The Struggle for the Crown: A Romance of
the Seventeenth Century (1912), is apparently aimed at young women and is
narrated by a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth of Bohemia, the "Winter
Queen." The others are Mistress
Bridget (1898), Vanity's Price
(1900), The Monk's Shadow (1902),
and Under the Stars (1907).
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YORKE, CURTIS (1854 – 3 May 1930)
(pseudonym of Susan Rowley
Long, married name Richmond Lee)
1880s – 1920s
Popular author of dozens of "cheerful,
lightweight romances" (OCEF),
including Hush! (1888), The Mystery of Belgrave Square (1889),
Bungay of Bandiloo (1903), Queer Little Jane (1912), Dangerous Dorothy (1912), The Level Track (1919), Miss Daffodil (1920), The Woman Ruth (1921), and Maidens Three (1928).
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Yorke, Jacqueline
see MATTHEWMAN, PHYLLIS
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YORKE, MARGARET (30 Jan 1924 – 17 Nov
2012)
(pseudonym of Margaret Beda Larminie, married name
Nicholson)
1950s – 2000s
Author of more than 40 novels, most of them crime fiction, often set in
English villages, featuring ordinary people driven by circumstance to crime.
She began her career with several works of general fiction, including Summer Flight (1957), Deceiving Mirror (1960), and The Limbo Ladies (1969). I wrote about
the last of these here. Five of her novels from the 1970s feature Oxford
don Patrick Grant, but in most of her work—according to Contemporary Authors—“Yorke was best known as an author of the
‘whydunit,’ rather than the ‘whodunit.’ Few of her plots revolve around
discovering the criminal. Instead the reader watches as the criminal wreaks
havoc—or tries to—on the other characters in the story.” Crime titles include
No Fury (1967), The Small Hours of the Morning (1975),
Death on Account (1979), Find Me a Villain (1983), Speak for the Dead (1988), and Cause for Concern (2001). The five novels featuring Patrick Grant are
Dead in the Morning (1970), Silent Witness (1973), Grave Matters (1973), Mortal Remains (1974), and Cast for Death (1976).
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Young, Diana
see RAYMOND, DIANA
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YOUNG, DIANA FRANCES (18 Aug 1894 – 24 Feb 1965)
(married name Martienssen)
1930s
Author of seven novels about which I have little information. Titles are Storm Before Sunrise (1935), The Door Stood Open (1936), The Unfinished Symphony (1937), The Lonely Guest (1937), Stray Cat (1938), Doves in Flight (1938), and Son
of the Dark (1939).
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YOUNG,
D[OROTHY]. V[ALERIE]. (dates unknown)
1950s – 1970s
Unidentified
author of at least seven books, all or most historical fiction. The Passionate Years (1959) is set
during the English Civil War, The
Queen's Galleons (1962) in Elizabethan Cornwall, and The White Boar (1963) deals with Richard III. King's Tragedy: The Life and Times of
Richard III (1971) certainly sounds like biography, but is classed as
fiction on Worldcat, and The Little
Madam: Henriette Marie de Bourbon, Queen of Great Britain, Daughter of France
(1974) may be for younger readers. Other titles are The Tudor Cub (1967) and The
Bride from Modena (1978). Her publisher, Robert Hale, said she lived in
Sileby, Leicestershire, but so far no definite identification has been made.
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YOUNG, ELLA (26 Dec 1867 – 23 Jul 1956)
1900s, 1920s – 1930s
Poet, Celtic mythologist, and children's author, born in Ireland but
immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, where she taught at Berkeley for several
years. Her four acclaimed children's books were The Coming of Lugh (1909), which was illustrated by none other
than Maud Gonne, The Wonder-Smith and
His Son (1927), The Tangle-Coated
Horse and Other Tales: Episodes from the Fionn Saga (1929), and The Unicorn with Silver Shoes (1932).
Her memoirs were published as Flowering
Dusk (1945).
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YOUNG, E[MILY]. H[ILDA]. (21 Mar 1880 – 8 Aug 1949)
(married name Daniell)
1910s – 1940s
Author of eleven novels and two children's books, known for her blending of humor with serious themes of female freedom and
growth. Miss Mole (1930), often
considered her best work, deals with a damaged, outspoken, spinster
housekeeper/companion and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her other
novels are A Corn of Wheat (1910), Yonder (1912), Moor Fires (1916), A Bridge Dividing (1922, aka The
Misses Mallett), William (1925), The Vicar's Daughter
(1927), Jenny Wren (1932), The Curate's Wife (1934), Celia (1937), and Chatterton Square (1947). Her two children's titles are Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942). In 2020, Dean
Street Press reprinted Miss Mole as
a Furrowed Middlebrow book. Chatterton
Square has also been reprinted in the British Library Women's Classics
series. I've written about Young here.
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YOUNG, F[LORENCE]. E[THEL]. MILLS (28 Aug 1875 – 6 Nov 1945)
1900s – 1940s
Author of more than 50 novels, often set in South Africa and generally
romantic in tone, though she published at least one early sci-fi/fantasy
novel called The War of the Sexes
(1905). Other titles include A
Dangerous Quest (1904), Atonement
(1910), The Purple Mists (1914), Beatrice Ashleigh (1918), Foreshadowed (1921), The Wine Farm (1924), The Inheritance (1928), The Rich Cargo (1932), Dreamlight (1938), and Two Streams (1945).
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YOUNG, PATRICIA (1921 - ????)
1940s – 1960s
Author of 20 novels, including Narrow
Streets (1942), Far Flung Seed
(1943), The Devil and His Apple
(1945), Dockside Symphony (1947), The Gallant Opportunist (1949), East of Bow Bells (1950), London's Child (1954), Half Past Yesterday (1959), Taffy (1961), and Sweet the Dream (1961).
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YOUNG, [ALICE] RUTH (26 Jan 1884 – 2
Dec 1983)
(née Wilson)
1920s
Primarily known as a poet, she also published one novel, The Serpent's Head (1922), and one children's book, The Sea-Gull and the Sphinx: A Fairy Story
(1924). She later published two biographies, Mrs. Chapman's Portrait: A Beauty of Bath of the 18th Century
(1926) and The Life of an Educational
Worker, Henrietta Busk (1934).
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ZANGWILL,
EDITH AYRTON (1875 – 5 May 1945)
1900s – 1920s
From a family
of pioneering women (her mother was a doctor, her stepmother a scientist),
Zangwill was a suffragist and activist as well as author of six novels. Her
early novels deal humorously with women's issues—The First Mrs Mollivar (1905), for example, is about a woman who
marries a widower and finds herself haunted by his first wife. Later works
are more serious, particularly The Call
(1924), which deals with the suffrage movement, and The House (1928), which deals with her own nervous breakdown. The
others are The Barbarous Babes: Being
the Memoirs of Molly (1904), Teresa
(1909), and The Rise of a Star
(1918).
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